- chapter 47: Health and medicine in Etruria –
suggested by several studies of Egyptian mummies and related populations. While claims
have been made for serious dental lesions affecting the Etruscans (see Lilley 2002), the
statistical incidence is extremely low (see Becker 2002B, 1993B). Dental health was fairly
good among Iron Age Italic populations, to judge from surviving skeletal fi nds. Many
people had very worn teeth, refl ecting the consumption of whole grains that have tough
silicate covers. Stone-ground cereals are more abrasive for their natural aspects than for
any minerals that might be added in the milling process, as suggested by Cattaneo and
Mazzucchi (2005). (Milling stones in every society are selected for qualities including
hardness). With improvements in food supply and urbanization, it would seem that
many more Etruscans began to eat “junk food” (refi ned carbohydrates such as white bread
instead of barley porridge). This is suggested by the many skeletons of the Archaic through
Hellenistic periods that reveal extensive dental calculus and lost teeth. Some of these
factors may be related to social class. These observations correspond only somewhat with
the dental example from Etruscan individuals now in the collections of the University of
Pennsylvania Museum, excavated at Narce, Vulci, Chiusi, and Montebello (see Becker et al.
2009: 41–61 passim, 71–76, 78–79, 98, 132–138). However, this is an extremely limited
sample. A greater sample from each of these many sites would be needed to confi rm any
hypothesis. A number of individuals in this group, and from other necropolis populations,
also have premolars with distinctive bifurcate tooth roots. The statistical signifi cance of
this trait remains to be explored. The Iron Age skeletal population was generally quite
short in stature. This is particularly evident among the women, who were often under fi ve
feet in height and had delicate skulls and jaws (Becker 2005). Many of them did not have
third molars (“wisdom teeth”). Statistical surveys of specifi c dental aspects of the skeletal
population of ancient Italy, factored for specifi c periods of time, would be useful.
Under the general concept of Etruscan dental medicine, note should be made regarding
various claims of fi nds of various materials used as dental implants. These claims have
been reviewed elsewhere (Becker 1994C, 1998A), and in some detail (Becker 1999D).
As with many other claims, these are based entirely on misidentifi cation of artifacts
found in or around the oral cavities of individuals. The recent developments in dental
techniques have, with the enormous progress of the past few decades in metallurgy as
well as medicine, achieved extremely high rates of success in implantology. To believe
that any group in Antiquity had achieved any degree of success in this fi eld is to give
credit to the Etruscans far beyond any that is due.
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN ETRURIALife was undoubtedly a challenge throughout Etruscan history. A year or two of poor
harvests would have threatened lives, health and political regimes, and even the epitaphs
of the nobility show death stalking young and old alike. Those suffering illness or trauma
had recourse to religious vows, and, during the third-second centuries bc, thousands of
votive models attest the healing of many individuals, commoners and freedmen as well
as nobility, although there is scant evidence of any medical intervention, apart perhaps
from post-mortem attempts at fetal salvage. The votive use of anatomical models of
internal organs and sculptural plaques or statues with exposed viscera attests a certain
level of recognition of anatomy and physiology by the general public, even if the models
are schematic and highly stylized. In healing cults as in nutrition and society in general,
women’s concerns were on a par with men’s. The population as a whole certainly enjoyed